A year of attacks linked to Nigeria's Boko Haram

People walk around the damaged mosque in the village of Konduga, after an attack in February 2014.

Story highlights

Nigeria is battling an Islamist insurgency that has claimed 3,000 lives since 2009

Boko Haram is fighting for stricter Sharia law in Nigeria's predominately Muslim north

Nigeria's military suspect Boko Haram was behind an attack on a college this week

At least 29 students were killed and several buildings torched in the Buni Yadi attack

Boko Haram is an Islamist militant group waging a campaign of violence in northeastern Nigeria, particularly in the states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa.

The group's ambitions range from the stricter enforcement of Sharia law -- which is derived from the Koran as the "world of God" -- across the predominantly Muslim north of Nigeria, to the total destruction of the Nigerian state and its government.

The Nigerian government is struggling to control the bloodshed between the mainly Muslim north and Christian south that has claimed more than 3,000 lives since Boko Haram came to prominence in 2009, according to Human Rights Watch.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have also accused Nigeria's military of committing atrocities against civilians.

After raising concerns with Nigeria's foreign minister last May, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said: "The government has acknowledged that there have been some problems ... they're working to try to control it."

Days after a deadly attack on a college in northeastern Nigeria, which the military suspects may have been committed by Boko Haram, we look back at the past year of attacks blamed on -- or claimed by -- the group.

February 26, 2014: At least 29 students die in an attack on a federal college in Buni Yadi, near the the capital of Yobe state, Nigeria's military says.

Authorities suspect Boko Haram carried out the assault in which several buildings were also torched.

They say scores of militants dressed in military uniforms storm the Christian farming village of Izghe, in Borno state, and open sporadic fire on residents, killing at least 106 people in an attack specifically targeting male residents.

In the second attack, suspected Boko Haram gunmen open fire on Doron Baga, a fishing village along Lake Chad. "They opened fire from all directions, forcing residents to jump into the lake in a bid to escape, and many drowned while others were gunned down," a survivor says.

October 20, 2013: Gunmen suspected of being members of Boko Haram attack motorists in northeastern Nigeria, killing four, authorities say. A Nigerian Army spokesman says the men -- dressed in military clothing -- launched the attack on a remote road in between Ikwa and Gamboru-Ngala in Borno State, close to the border of Cameroon.

May 7, 2013: Two soldiers are killed in Bama, Borno state, during coordinated attacks on multiple targets. Nigeria's military says more than 100 Boko Haram militants armed with machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and anti-aircraft weapons mounted on vehicles carried out the attack. President Goodluck Jonathan says dozens of people were killed and police say at least 13 suspected militants were among the dead.

February 19, 2013: A French family of seven is kidnapped in Cameroon. Boko Haram releases a video of the hostages in which a spokesman demands that Nigeria and Cameroon free jailed members of its group. The family was later released.